James Bond: Spectre Movie Review

So Sony Pictures Australia invited me to the Melbourne movie premiere of Spectre, also known as James Bond 24.

Digressing for a moment, can you believe there’s been 24 Bond movies made? The first one I knew was a Pierce Brosnan movie, and for a very long time I had thought that Pierce Brosnan was the one and only James Bond.

Anyway!

Thanks Sony Pictures Australia for giving us the privilege of catching the Melbourne movie premiere at Village Cinemas Crown!

SPOILERS AHEAD * * *

Spectre is set after the previous movie Skyfall, and stars Daniel Craig as the titular character Bond. Christoph Waltz and Lea Seydoux also star.

Best part:

The scene that I’m most impressed with is the opening scene in Mexico. The extravagant Day of the Dead celebrations was a nice touch in making a colourful backdrop. It’s a very visually exciting scene.

I also love the (what looks like but apparently actually isn’t) continuous take in the beginning where the camera follows Daniel Craig through the crowd, up the elevator, into the room, etc. without a single cut.

It made you feel like you were right there with him walking along the streets, following James Bond to see what sort of mischief he gets up to next.

It totally looked like it was one continuous shot, but director Sam Mendes confessed that he just created a Birdman effect with that scene. They just shot it with a few incredibly long takes and edited everything together.

Still, it was quite impressive.

Disappointing part:

When I heard that Christoph Waltz was in this movie, I was terribly excited.

Christoph Waltz is an amazing actor who won two Academy Awards for his roles in Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained (both directed by Quentin Tarantino). He’s fast-talking and super hilarious in general.

He’s just really entertaining and often intelligent, whether on screen with a script or in interviews.

But… none was that was ever showcased in the entire two-and-a-half hour movie. Instead, Waltz was relegated to a typical one-dimensional villain.

I’m not sure whether it was poor writing or poor acting or something else that translated poorly on screen, but either way something fell apart.

I know that James Bond movies are typical action flicks, which generally showcase the good guys versus the bad guys, but there wasn’t anything memorable about the movie.

Overall:

I thought the movie started off very well (the opening scene and opening credits were incredible) but slowly became less exciting. I did enjoy the car chase scenes between the classic Aston Martin and the villain’s Jaguar held in Rome.

Overall it’s a good popcorn flick. But not any much better (or different) than its predecessors. It was certainly an entertaining movie and I enjoyed the 2 and a half hours spent in the cinema. But I would not watch it again.

Many thanks to Sony Pictures Australia for inviting us to catch James Bond: Spectre in the cinema.